Awakening Page 8

  He felt cold and could barely feel the sand beneath his feet. Rawiri’s hand closed around his forearm and he let himself be led to kneel beside his mother, the other men retreating to kneel behind them.

  Led by Karnit, the members of the Guides Circle picked up a gourd each and approached his father’s body. One by one they tipped the contents upon him, intoning ancient words as they moved around his body. The coloured sands drifted down from the upturned gourds in a fine veil. Slowly the witnesses behind picked up the low chant until a hum filled the cavern, like the rush of a sandstorm. Then suddenly all sound stopped.

  Mailun dropped her hands into the sand by her knees, tilted her head back, and let out a wordless scream. Tallis bowed his head and closed his eyes. The cry was taken up by other women who had lost husbands or sons; joining their sorrow to hers in a primal scream that carried far across the desert.

  Tallis rose to his feet and accepted a knife from Karnit. Standing over his father’s body, he sliced through his forearm, a shallow slash, dripping warm blood over his father’s face, giving back the blood that had been taken. He watched the drops fall and began to shiver. Chill bumps rose on his naked torso. The sounds of the screaming faded in and out and the earth tilted beneath him. He blinked and tried to focus, taking a shaky breath. The rush of air in his lungs sounded louder than the screaming. With a great effort he lifted his eyes to the night beyond the yawning mouth of the great cavern.

  The blackness of it blurred his vision. He could see nothing beyond the lights of the cave, only endless shadow. A sharp wind swept in suddenly from the desert, whipping his face. He thought he heard it whisper to him. Then it was gone. He swayed and hands steadied him. He dropped the knife and allowed them to lead him back to sit by his now silent mother. When had the screaming stopped?

  Disorientated, he watched as the three Circle members each picked up a torch, turned and walked out into the night. The light from their flames played shadows across the pyre waiting for his father’s body. They stationed themselves around the pile of brush and motioned for the pyre bearers to bring Haldane to them. Four bare-chested men moved forward and hefted the litter onto their shoulders taking it outside. The drummers again started their beat.

  Tallis watched with a growing numbness as they set a torch to his father. His mother reached for his hand and he held hers in a tight grip as the flames grew higher and smoke rose into the black desert night.

  10

  Tallis leaned against the wall outside the great cavern and watched the faint wash of pink spread along the horizon. The air was cool and he could still see the quarter moon, pale and insubstantial, fading into the cloudless dawn. He hadn’t slept and he felt light and bodiless, a husk of a man waiting to be blown away across the sands.

  He looked down at his hands. His fingers were covered in fine grey dust. Sometime in the night he had stumbled over to the pyre and put his hands into the still hot ashes. He could barely remember it, but a blister was forming on his thumb, tangible evidence of what he had done. He looked to where his mother lay. She had finally succumbed to sleep sometime before dawn, but now her eyes were open and she was staring at the cold pile of ash and bone. A drift of wind caught the top and swirled the dust of his father away across the sand.

  ‘Kaa always takes the best,’ Mailun said softly. ‘The gods of my people were not so wanting as this one.’ She turned and rested on her arm looking up at him. ‘Perhaps one day they will steal you from me also, if this clan does not first.’ Her face was bleached of all emotion, brittle as bone left to dry on the desert floor.

  He could find no words of comfort for her and stared back out at the silent desert.

  ‘First Cale and Malshed, his first heart mate’s boys,’ she whispered. ‘Now him.’

  ‘Perhaps you should go back when I am gone,’ Tallis said. ‘Back to the north.’

  ‘No.’ She sat up and back against the rock. ‘The Ichindar will not take me. But if they cast you out, I will exile myself and go with you.’

  He stared at her with horror. ‘I will not let you do that! You have people here who will care for you.’ He thought of the promise Jared had made to him.

  Mailun looked at him calmly. ‘There is no one here for me if you are gone, my son. I will not be condemned never to see my child again.’ Her voice dropped low and she stared out away from him across the desert. ‘I have done it once before. I cannot do it again.’

  Unsure he had heard her correctly, he frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Her dark blue eyes measured him. He noticed for the first time the fine lines around her eyes and touch of grey in her hair.

  ‘Son,’ she hesitated, and uneasiness became a cold fist inside him. A whisper of what he had felt in the desert that day brushed his skin. ‘You are not Haldane’s son, Tallis,’ she said quietly. ‘I was already with child when I met him.’

  Something dropped inside him and he stared at her.

  ‘Son?’ She was waiting for him to say something. But he could not speak.

  He turned away. He was shaking inside, but worse, he was not surprised. He knew he should be, but he was not. Deep inside a voice whispered: Yes . . . it makes sense, it feels true.

  ‘Tallis?’ She put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off.

  Anger curled like flames, hot and heavy in his limbs. His hands made fists in the sand and he stared out at a bird as it launched itself up from a thorn bush and into the sky.

  ‘Tallis, I’m sorry but I wanted you to know now in case . . .’ she hesitated. ‘And that is not all, there is something else I have never told you. Something . . .’ She drew in a long breath. ‘You are not my only child. I gave birth to twins that night. There were two of you, but she was so small, so small.’ Her voice caught and he turned to stare at her, his heart suddenly massive and thudding in his chest.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘You have a sister,’ she whispered. ‘But she was sick, they took her away from me.’

  Cold hollowed him. A child born ill was already touched by Kaa, marked for him alone. It was against clan law to keep such a child.

  ‘Karnit took her out to the sands that night.’ Mailun looked away. ‘He left her there, and when he returned he said Kaa had already taken her. But I knew different.’ Her mouth hardened. ‘This clan . . . sometimes it was only my love for Haldane that kept me here.’

  ‘Is she alive?’

  ‘I don’t know. I went against clan law that night. The one who saved her risked much for me. I know your sister was rescued from the sands, but I do not know where she was taken. Perhaps the Guides have revenged themselves against me and taken her anyway. Or perhaps this is their revenge.’ Her voice was empty as she stared at Haldane’s ashes. ‘All I know is I could not let them do it. I would not give her up so easily.’

  He stared at her profile, etched by the light of the morning sun, and felt all that he knew, or thought he knew, about himself and his place in the world had fallen away.

  ‘Did he know? Did my father . . .’ he checked himself, ‘did Haldane know?’

  ‘About you? Yes, he knew. But I never told him what I did for your sister. He could not have borne it. The clan ways were too strong in him.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘But he was happy to claim you as his own and to love you as his own.’

  ‘Loved, mother,’ Tallis said harshly. ‘He is dead.’

  Mailun said nothing and the silence stretched between them. Finally, Tallis spoke. ‘Who was my birth father? What is his name?’

  Her voice was strained. ‘His name is not important.’

  ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. Too quickly. ‘He died not long after I became pregnant. I went away to mourn and it was then that I met Haldane.’ She took a fractured breath and looked at her hands, then back at him, her eyes pleading. ‘That’s all you need to know. Haldane was your real father, the man who loved you, who raised you. I only tell you this now because . . .’

  ‘Becau
se now it does not matter,’ he said harshly. ‘He is gone, dead because of me, and they will cast me out. But what does it matter? I am not Jalwalah, not really. I am like you, adopted into clan, taken pity on.’ The thought tortured him. How many others knew he was not really Jalwalah? Did the Circle know? Would it make it easier for them?

  ‘Son.’ Mailun laid her hand on his arm but he shook it off.

  ‘Tallis.’ A soft voice called and they both turned to see Shila the Dreamer approaching them.

  His breath caught. She was here to lead him to the Circle. Slowly he rose to his feet. The urge to run was almost overpowering. Mailun stood and reached for his hand, but he would not let her hold it.

  Shila came close. Like all dreamers her hair was white-blonde – the sign of being touched by the Guides – and hung straight as a curtain around her delicate features. Her lips were full, her skin unlined. She was older than he, older than his mother, but any would think she was still a young woman, were it not for her eyes. She came to him and he felt a giant before her.

  ‘Tallis.’ Her voice was soft and when he looked into her grey eyes he felt a sensation, like the world slipping away. ‘The Circle is ready to see you now.’

  His mother stiffened beside him and tried to touch him again, but he flinched away.

  ‘I will wait for you here son,’ she said, but he couldn’t look at her.

  ‘Come Tallis.’ Shila held an arm out toward the caves. ‘They are waiting.’

  His mouth dry, he nodded and followed the Dreamer into the cavern.

  11

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs. The Guide Circle’s meeting place was a small, round cave set deep in the rock of the Jalwalah’s Well. Warm steam rose from hot springs at the back, and light fell in a greenish hue from the oil lamps set in the wall.

  The six remaining members of the Circle sat on cushioned stools of rock around a central low stone, sweat shining on their faces. The stool next to Nevan was empty: Haldane’s place. Tallis’s throat closed up as he looked at it and he made himself watch the Dreamer instead as she went to take her place at the right of Karnit, next to her heart mate Thadin. The warrior’s shaved head shone dully in the light and he gave Tallis a hard stare as he met his gaze. Tallis looked away. Like all the clan men, Thadin hunted but he was also chief of the warriors and had won them many an inter-clan battle. He had never had much liking for Haldane, or for him.

  The other members of the Circle: Miram, Nevan and Crull, watched him impassively.

  ‘Sit.’ Karnit pointed to the stone in the centre of their gathering. Without a word, he did as he was told. His heart thudding, he faced them. He could feel the dark eyes of the huntress Miram on him. She was a tall, strong woman and he had always thought of her as fair. He hoped she judged him tonight with her heart.

  After he was seated she rose to speak. ‘We are here to lay judgment upon Tallis, son of our clan, blood of our blood.’

  Her voice was low and clear and his guts twisted at her words. He was not of their blood, not now, not ever.

  ‘He has spoken ancient words and has been charged with communing with serpents, an action against clan law. As set down by Rhodin, two thousand years ago: that way lays danger and death and never shall it be tolerated in this clan.’ Her voice rose at the last and she paused for a moment before adding, ‘A life was lost, yet many were saved. It has been the task of this Circle to decide if this man is still worthy to be called a son of the Jalwalah. Tallis, do you have any reply?’

  He drew a shaky breath. What could he say? He hardly knew himself what had happened. How could he explain it to them? If he told them of his feelings, of the shivering wrongness inside, how could that help him? He looked at Karnit. The leader’s gaze was hard and pitiless. He did not think that anything he could say would sway him.

  ‘I don’t remember much of what happened,’ he spoke slowly. ‘The serpents came. I was afraid. They were all around us, attacking, lunging with their claws, shrieking . . . one of them grabbed my father . . .’ He stopped and swallowed, trying to push down the lump that had risen in his throat. ‘It pulled him away and . . . something came over me. I was angry . . . my father was bleeding . . . I spoke then there was blackness. I remember no more.’ He stared at the ground, feeling their eyes upon him.

  For a moment there was silence then Miram said, ‘Thank you’. She turned and addressed the rest of the Circle. ‘We have been here many hours debating, and still have reached no consensus. We brought Tallis here in hope his words would help our decision. We have heard them, but now I say we should ask the Guides. I say we ask the Dreamer to search for an answer, for who knows, perhaps it was the Guides who gave these ancient words to our clansman.’

  Tallis felt a flare of hope. Could Miram’s words be true? It seemed an impossible thing, and yet he wished it were so. He looked up at Karnit from under his lashes, but his hope faltered under the leader’s hard gaze.

  ‘I do not doubt the Guides’ power.’ Karnit’s scratched, deep voice came from the shadows of his seat. ‘But I doubt their influence in this boy, who is not even wholly of this clan.’

  ‘Karnit!’ Shila exclaimed, but he ignored her.

  ‘I saw him. He looked the beast in the eye and spoke words it understood – ancient words.’ He turned his gaze to the Dreamer. ‘He has the touch of the Fifth Guide on him.’

  Shila’s face drained of colour and the rest of the Circle became utterly still. Tallis felt as though all the breath had been sucked from his body. Enocia: the Fifth Guide, the thief of free will. The Outcast.

  ‘He is too dangerous to be allowed to stay,’ Karnit said.

  The loud drip of water in the springs echoed in the cave as all members of the Circle stared at the old hunter, their faces registering shock. Even Thadin looked taken aback. Shila, her face white and her chin high, rose to speak, but a deep voice suddenly echoed through the cave stopping her words.

  ‘Circle!’

  In a daze, Tallis turned to see a bare-chested man striding down the steps from the entrance, followed closely by one of Thadin’s warriors.

  ‘Who disturbs us?’ Karnit’s face was fierce.

  ‘Forgive me, leader,’ the warrior said. ‘I could not refuse him entry, he carried this.’ He held up a hard baked disc of red clay imprinted with the outline of the eye of Sabut. A peace token, it was used by the clans to allow messengers to approach an enemy for consul unmolested.

  Karnit’s lips twitched in disdain as he saw it, but he beckoned the man forward. ‘Speak, then.’

  Tall and well muscled, the intruder had a wide jaw and thick lips and his head was shaved leaving a thin strip of cropped dark hair across his head from ear to ear. He approached Karnit, bowed his head and spread his arms wide. ‘I have no weapon and come for the good of all clans.’

  ‘Since when do the Raknah care about other clans?’ Thadin said.

  The man ignored him. ‘I am Krald, First Warrior of the Raknah. Are you head of this clan?’ He addressed his words to Karnit.

  The old hunter nodded, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘I bring you news of an enemy that kills regardless of clan. Two days past, serpents attacked one of our hunting parties. They killed all but one of our men. He dragged himself back to our Well holding his flesh together. He told me of the attack before Kaa claimed him.’

  Karnit stared at him, his face betraying nothing at the news. ‘Are you sure?’

  Krald’s face darkened. ‘He was my son. He would not have lied to me. The Raknah are not Ja . . .’

  Thadin made a sound deep in his throat and Krald stopped, the effort not to speak obvious.

  Karnit was unmoved. ‘Many have lost sons. Many Jalwalah have lost sons to the hand of the Raknah.’

  ‘And many Raknah have given their sons in battle with the Jalwalah,’ Krald retorted. ‘But these men did not go to Kaa in honour fighting for clan! They were taken by a beast that knew no honour, that cut them down as though they were meat for its table.’

/>   Karnit said nothing and around him the others sat tensely watching.

  ‘I see you have sent one of your own to Kaa.’ Krald swung around to look at the others. His gaze swept over Tallis and beyond to Haldane’s empty seat.

  ‘And one of your Circle. How was he taken? Was it the same beasts?’ He looked back at Karnit. ‘I think you already know of the beasts.’

  ‘We will not share the loss of one of our own with a Raknah,’ Karnit spat the word. ‘You will go now, while you still stand unmarked.’ He nodded his head at Thadin who moved a step toward the warrior, his hand on his knife.

  Krald gave a twisted smile and nodded. ‘As you say, Leader. But first I will tell you why I came. I was visited by men from both the Shalneef and the Baal. They too have suffered similar attacks. We suspect it is the same throughout our lands. We are calling a Gathering to unite the clans. I have come to give you this missive: we meet at Sabut’s Well in three days. It is your choice.’

  He nodded once at Karnit then turned and left, disappearing up the stairs, escorted by the warrior.

  There was a long silence after they had gone.

  ‘A Gathering,’ Shila said, sitting slowly.

  ‘There has not been a Gathering in more than fifty years,’ Miram said.

  ‘How can we trust him?’ Thadin looked at Karnit. ‘He is Raknah, he could be leading us into a trap.’

  ‘No,’ Shila said. ‘He carried the token. Even the Raknah would not misuse that. And he was mourning for his son. He spoke true.’

  ‘He may only have spoken the truth of his son’s death. He could still be preparing a trap for us, the Raknah cannot be trusted!’

  ‘But at least now we know we are not the only clan to have been victim to these beasts,’ Crull spoke. ‘He said other clans have also been attacked. I think this changes how we decide Tallis’s fate. We must consider attending this Gathering.’

  ‘Enough!’ Karnit snapped. ‘Attacks on other clans do not change what Tallis did. And as for the Gathering, we must think carefully on exposing ourselves to our enemies, not rush in like muthu in mating season!’